Francesco Maria I della Rovere

Francesco was born in Senigallia, the son of the Papal captain and lord of that city, Giovanni della Rovere, and Giovanna da Montefeltro,{{sfn|Albury|2016|p=30}} daughter of Federico III da Montefeltro. He was also the nephew of Giuliano della Rovere, Pope Julius II.{{sfn|Bartlett|2013|p=202}}

Image:Tizian 055.jpg by Titian, 1538]]

His uncle Guidobaldo I of Urbino, who was without an heir, summoned him to his court and made him heir of that dukedom in 1504,{{sfn|Bartlett|2013|p=202}} through the intercession of Julius II. In 1502 the della Rovere had lost the seigniory of Senigallia, occupied by Cesare Borgia, then the most powerful figure in the Marche: Francesco Maria and his mother were saved from the slaughter perpetrated by Borgia's troops by the then-land soldier Andrea Doria. When in 1508 Guidobaldo died, Francesco Maria became duke of Urbino; thanks to the support of his uncle the pope he could also recover Senigallia after Borgia's death.

In 1508 he married Eleonora Gonzaga (1493–1570), daughter of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua and Isabella d'Este.{{sfn|Cole|2018|p=104}}

File:Hypatia Sanzio.png's The School of Athens (1509–11), possibly Francesco della Rovere, although others think it is the philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.{{cite book|last=Wojciehowski|first=Hannah Chapelle|title=Group Identity in the Renaissance World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XRY6rgYan00C&pg=PR15|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-00360-6|page=15}}{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/nationalquarterl08newyrich|page=[https://archive.org/details/nationalquarterl08newyrich/page/133 133]|quote=Francesco della Rovere school of athens.|title=The National Quarterly Review|date=4 June 1864|publisher=Pudney & Russell|via=Internet Archive}}]]

In 1509 he was appointed as {{lang|it|capitano generale}} (commander-in-chief) of the Papal States,{{sfn|Fletcher|2020|p=250}} and subsequently fought in the Italian Wars against Ferrara and Venice. In 1511, after he had failed to conquer Bologna, he had the cardinal Francesco Alidosi killed by his troops, a cruel action for which he was compared to Borgia himself. In 1513 he was created also lord of Pesaro.

However, the death of Julius II deprived him of his main political patron, and under the new pope, Leo X, Pesaro was given to the latter's nephew, Lorenzo II de' Medici. In 1516 he was excommunicated and ousted from Urbino, which he tried unsuccessfully to recover the following year. He could return in his duchy only after Leo's death in 1521.

Image:Raffaello Sanzio (Urbino 1483 - Roma 1520) - Ritratto di giovane con pomo - 8760 - Uffizi Gallery.jpg, portrait of Francesco Maria as a teenager by Raphael, 1504.]]

Della Rovere fought as captain general of the Republic of Venice in Lombardy during the Italian Wars of 1521 (1523–1525), but with the new Medici Pope, Clement VII, the della Rovere were increasingly marginalized. As supreme commander of the Holy League, his inaction against the Imperial invasion troops is generally listed as one of the causes of the Sack of Rome (1527).

He was a protagonist of the capture of Pavia in the late 1520s{{When|date=March 2024}}, and later{{When|date=March 2024}} fought for the Republic of Venice. Later{{When|date=March 2024}} he arranged the marriage of son Guidobaldo to Giulia da Varano (belonging to another former seigniory family of the region) to counter the Papal power in the Marche.

He died in Pesaro, poisoned. Some scholars suggest that The Murder of Gonzago, an unknown play referenced in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which is itself later reworked by Hamlet into The Mousetrap (the play within the play), may have been a popular theatrical reenactment of Della Rovere's death and may have been portrayed in England's early theaters during the Elizabethan Era.{{cite web

| last = McGee

| first = Arthur

| title = The Elizabethan Hamlet

| date = 1 September 2007

| url = http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/bierman/elsinore/poison/PoisonGonzago.html

| access-date = 1 September 2007

| archive-date = 12 June 2008

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080612021003/http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/bierman/elsinore/poison/PoisonGonzago.html

| url-status = dead

}}

Francesco and Eleanora had:

• Federico della Rovere (1511 – died aged two months).
• Guidobaldo II della Rovere (2 April 1514 – 28 September 1574), married Giulia Varano and had issue; married Vittoria Farnese (daughter of Pier Luigi Farnese, Duke of Parma) had issue (ancestors of Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina).
• Ippolita della Rovere (1515–1561), married Antonio of Aragon, Duke of Montalto.
• Giovanna della Rovere (1515–1518).
• Giovanni della Rovere (1516–1518).
• Caterina della Rovere (1518–1520).
• Beatrice della Rovere (1521–1522).
• Francesco Maria della Rovere (1523–1525).
• Maria della Rovere (1527–1528).
• Elisabetta della Rovere (1529 – 6 June 1561), married Alberico I Cybo-Malaspina, Marquis of Massa and had issue (ancestors of Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina).
• Giulia Feltria della Rovere (1531 – 4 April 1563), married Alfonso d'Este, Lord of Montecchio and had issue (were parents of Cesare d'Este, Duke of Modena).
• Giulio Feltrio della Rovere (1533–1578), became a cardinal then later had issue (illegitimate):IppolitoLater legitimised and named Marchese di San Lorenzo. Ippolito's daughter Lucrezia married Marcantonio Lante and their son assumed the new extended surname as Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rovere and Giulio.
• Violante della Rovere (1535–1538).

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Albury |first=W.R. |title=Castiglione's Allegory: Veiled Policy in The Book of the Courtier (1528) |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 }}
• {{cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Kenneth R. |title=A Short History of the Italian Renaissance |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2013 }}
• {{cite book |last=Cole |first=Bruce |title=Titian And Venetian Painting, 1450-1590 |publisher=Routledge |year=2018 }}
• {{cite book |last=Fletcher |first=Catherine |title=The Beauty and the Terror: The Italian Renaissance and the Rise of the West |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 }}
• {{cite book|last=Rendina|first=Claudio|title=I capitani di ventura|publisher=Newton Compton|location=Rome|year=1994}}

{{commons category|Francesco Maria I della Rovere}}

{{s-start}}

{{S-reg|it}}

{{s-bef|before=Giovanni della Rovere}}

{{s-ttl|title=Duke of Sora|years=1501–1516}}

{{s-aft|after=William de Croÿ}}

{{s-bef|before=Guidobaldo I}}

{{s-ttl|title=Duke of Urbino|years=1508–1516 (1517)}}

{{s-aft|after=Lorenzo II de' Medici}}

{{s-bef|before=Lorenzo II de' Medici}}

{{s-ttl|title=Duke of Urbino|years=1521–1538}}

{{s-aft|after=Guidobaldo II}}

{{s-bef|before=William de Croÿ}}

{{s-ttl|title=Duke of Sora|years=1533–1538}}

{{s-aft|after=Giulio della Rovere}}

{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Della Rovere, Francesco Maria 1}}

Category:1490 births

Category:1538 deaths

Category:People from Senigallia

Francesco Maria 1

Category:People excommunicated by the Catholic Church

Francesco Maria 1

Francesco Maria 1

Category:16th-century condottieri

Category:Military leaders of the Italian Wars

Category:Republic of Venice generals

Category:Assassinated Italian people

Category:16th-century Italian nobility

Category:Captains General of the Church

Category:16th-century murdered monarchs